Niche Shit

first meeting.

My Journey to Escape the War in Gaza

My name is Abdelmajed. I never imagined I’d be sharing my story like this, but life in Gaza has become unbearable. I am a survivor of the war here, and in the blink of an eye, everything I once knew—my home, my safety, my community—was ripped away from me.

The war has transformed Gaza into a graveyard of broken dreams. The buildings that once stood as symbols of life and resilience are now piles of rubble. Every corner is filled with the echoes of explosions. Every moment is shrouded in uncertainty. There is no security. There is no stability. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Basic needs have become luxuries. Food is scarce. Clean water is even scarcer. Hospitals are overwhelmed and under-resourced, and there is almost no medical care to be found. Every night, families go to bed hungry, praying they’ll wake up to see another day. The cost of basic necessities has skyrocketed, and it’s become a daily battle just to survive.

I’ve seen things I never thought possible—standing in long lines for a piece of bread, rationing every drop of water, and watching my people suffer in silence. I have lost everything—my home, my safety, my dignity.

Escape from Gaza is my only hope, but it’s almost impossible without financial help. The cost of evacuation is far beyond my means, and without support, I’m trapped in a warzone with no way out.

I’m reaching out to you now, in the hopes that someone, anyone, can help. I am not asking for luxury. I am asking for a chance—just a chance—to live. A chance to escape this never-ending cycle of fear, destruction, and loss. A chance to rebuild my life somewhere safe, where I can begin again, where I can find hope once more.

Chuffed

Help Abdelmajed Escape Gaza and Rebuild His Life

My name is Abdelmajed, and I am a survivor of the war in Gaza. Everything I once knew has been taken away—my home, my safety, and the people

Any amount you can give will help me get closer to safety. Even the smallest donation will make a difference—it could be the lifeline I need to survive. If you are unable to donate, please share my story. The more people who hear it, the better the chance that I can find the support I desperately need.

Your kindness and support mean the world to me. You’re not just helping me escape a war; you’re giving me a chance to live, to rebuild, to breathe again.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for caring.

Vetted by @gazavetters

average diplomatic visit from the avatar

still figuring out acrylic markers:) have a doodle

zuko closeup under the cut lol

Angry again over the ATLA fandom's treatment of Ursa, one of the biggest victims in the entire series of the FN Royal Family.

People treat the Royal Family like it's just another abusive household, which results in the overly harsh treatment of Ursa, who was the most powerless person in that entire family by political standards. She was a lowborn, engaged to the younger prince as a test to merge the bloodlines of the Royal Family with that of an Avatar's. She was basically forced into an experimental arranged marriage to a disposable heir, cut off from her family, and thrown into a pit of vipers AKA the Royal Palace.

Imagine being in her shoes. Imagine having virtually no support or standing in an unfamiliar place where even the slightest mistake could result in either humiliation at best or death at worst. She is married to a horrible man who despises the fact that he doesn't even get a noble for a wife, that he is being ridiculed by being married off to a lowborn and basically being told that it was impossible for him to ever be the Fire Lord, since if he had a fair shot wouldn't they have ensured a better marriage prospect? He gains no supporters or additional backing through his wife, which he should have had as a prince, and doesn't that just sting? He's discredited in Azulon's eyes, and in the eyes of the nobility, so what chance does he have to rise above his station now?

Who do you think took the brunt of his shame and anger at his situation? Who would have suffered most at the hands of an angry young man who had no qualms with burning his own thirteen-year-old son for just daring to speak up unasked?

People claim Ursa had let go of Azula because she thought Azula was a monster and that she only helped Zuko because he was kind. Zuko was allowed to be kind because he was deemed weak, and Ozai didn't want to pay attention to him. He is only kind because of his mother's influence, which he wouldn't have had if he was up to Ozai's standards. If he had been, Ozai would have kept Ursa and Zuko separate to better control Zuko and ensure his son's loyalty. He wanted his heir to be a child that he could paint entirely in his own image to cover up the fact that their other parent was a peasant, which would cast further doubts on his rights and position within the palace.

People make it out to be like Ursa CHOSE to save Zuko, laughably assuming that this woman had the ability to CHOOSE anything, much less ANY sort of power within the palace. Even her own children outranked her in the nobles' eyes by virtue of having royal blood. She lived in the place where her husband worked and where all the servants answered to either him or his father, so she was never truly free to move or act. Every move was watched. Every interaction was noted.

Ursa was able to influence and help Zuko by showing him a form of kindness, but notice how she never said a bad word about Ozai or the Royal Family? She couldn't. She never twisted Zuko away or tried to outright call her husband wrong—she even defended some of his actions despite knowing otherwise. She could not act or speak freely. She knew she was being watched. She couldn't even pull Zuko away completely from Ozai—that's how utterly powerless she was. Her children loved a monster, and she could do nothing to stop them.

We are shown in canon that Ursa and Zuko spend time together, but that's just it. Ursa never tries to turn Zuko "good" or convince him Ozai is terrible because she CAN'T. She does her best by being stern and setting examples, and Zuko is desperate enough for love to internalize every moment with her, but the pond scene shows how Ursa was only able to do just that—play the role of a stern, kind mother.

And the thing is—if given the chance, she'd save them both. She loved them both, even if Azula reminded her too much of the monster that she married. If she had ever had the opportunity, she would have left with both. Except she couldn't because once Ozai had his prodigy, she was never going to be able to go near her child ever again. Ursa would try, through Zuko as we see in the flashback, to reach her daughter somehow, but it never worked. If she truly always thought of Azula as a "monster", would she let her "perfect son" go play with her? She could have shut Azula out completely and discourage her from ever coming close, Azula is young enough to still listen to her Mom, but we see both Azula and Zuko at her side reading the letter. Ursa doesn't lean away from her daughter. We see her hesitate but never flinch away when she is near Azula.

Ursa only spent time with Zuko because he was the only one she COULD have paid attention to, not because she CHOSE to. Ozai paid him no interest, so she was ALLOWED to spend her time with Zuko. If she had the chance, the allowance, to spend time with Azula she would have done it in a fucking heartbeat. People paint her as "saving" the one "who could be saved" or "throwing Azula to the wolves to focus on Zuko" as if she had any fucking choice, as if she didn't took what crumbs she could get to be close to her children. She didn't toss Azula aside, Ozai KEPT THEM APART. I REPEAT, HE KEPT THEM APART. He did NOT want his lowborn wife influencing his prized heir with her ways, so he kept them apart, READ THAT AGAIN.

It was never Ursa "choosing" which of her kids to save and protect. It was always her doing her best to use her limited, almost non-existent freedom of movement to reach her children in any way, and Zuko just happened to be free. If anyone was doing the whole "focusing on one kid and tossing aside the other" it. Was. Ozai.

IHATE KEU LO I HATE KEI LO I HATE LEI LO I HAYE KEI LO I HATE KEI LO I HA

i hate when people treat mai and zukos break up like it was permanent like this is not something you do if you are over your ex im sorry 😭😭

People always say they want complex characters. They ask for nuance, for gray areas, for emotional depth and realistic growth. But when a character starts feeling too real, so much so that they stop acting like someone in a story and start feeling like someone you could actually meet – that's when the discomfort kicks in. That's when admiration often turns into criticism. And very few in The Legend of Korra walks that tightrope quite like Suyin Beifong.

Su doesn’t follow the typical “lesson of the week” formula. She doesn’t get handed a tidy moment of reckoning, followed by an instant transformation. Her arc isn’t flashy or obvious. It’s slow, subtle, and sometimes contradictory. Just like real people. Because the truth is, most of us don’t change overnight. We grow a little here, slip back there. We learn something, but that doesn’t mean we always apply it in every situation. That’s Suyin in a nutshell.

Look at how she changes as a mother. At first, she tries to micromanage Opal’s choices out of fear, mostly, and a need to protect her. But eventually, she lets Opal go and lets her live her life without trying to control her path. That’s a win. That’s real growth. But then Baatar Jr. betrays the family, and Su reacts by putting him under house arrest. It’s easy to point at that and call it hypocrisy, but that misses the bigger picture. Her deepest fears for her kids came true with Baatar, and so, of course, she tries to regain some kind of control in the aftermath. And yet, she doesn’t try to rope Opal back in. She lets her stay free. That shows her earlier growth wasn’t erased, just complicated by pain.

This is the part people tend to ignore. They rush to call her a hypocrite without stopping to think about what hypocrisy really is. People are full of contradictions. We want conflicting things. We act on emotion. We stumble. We grow unevenly. No one is morally consistent all the time. Su isn’t some moral failure she’s just human. And that’s what unsettles people. They want characters who get what’s coming to them or learn the “right” lesson. But Su doesn’t fit into that framework. She just keeps going, flaws and all.

That’s also what makes her so compelling. She’s not a straightforward hero or a satisfying villain. She’s a complicated woman trying to balance power, family, control, and identity in ways that are messy and real. When people critique her, it’s often not because she doesn’t make sense, but because she makes too much sense.

She’s too familiar. Too human.

Everyone says they want nuanced characters... until they’re faced with someone like Suyin. Someone who holds up a mirror. And when that reflection hits a little too close to home, people tend to look away. But it’s in that raw honesty where her character really shines.

TIL that zuko canonically took mai out on a romantic date to a picnic on the burial site of his ancestors and i think that’s honestly the most on brand thing ever

best siblings of their verse btw

🔥 Family Portrait 🔥

your honour i love them that’s all

the way avatar fandom would let zutaras live in their delusion if they weren’t freaks about the ship, aang, katara and mai

oh well